


Trust The Dog

by PBJellie



Category: South Park
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blind Character, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, Karen is the major character death and its a past event, M/M, Physical Disability, Service Dogs, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, Veterans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBJellie/pseuds/PBJellie
Summary: Butters enlisted in the army at graduation in hopes of escaping this small town. When he returns home from an accident overseas, he realizes just how socially isolated a person can become. He's given a service dog, without his consent, and has trouble coming to terms with the responsibilities and privileges associated with such a gift.And what's this about Kenny McCormick getting out of jail? Two years doesn't seem long enough for so much to change, and then it seems like too long for so many things to be the same.





	1. Chapter 1

Trust the dog.

Fat fucking chance, Butters chuckled to himself. He had been Leo over there, but the minute his feet touched terra firma, he was Butters, again. And to be honest, his feet weren't even pressed into the earth. No, he was carried from a plane to a helicopter, then wheeled into an OR where they, miraculously saved everything. 

Everything except his eyes. 

But he was so lucky, wasn't he? So lucky. 

And to commend him for his brave service, which pretty much started and ended with his not friend driving them right into an IED. They were brothers, though. They were all brothers, and just because they weren't friends doesn't mean they weren't bound by blood. 

They were; they were bound together, because everyone else died, but he was fine. He lived, a medical miracle. They were the good guys, and it was supposed to be that easy. They were good and the enemy was bad, and good always won.

He was dumb; he knew he was dumb. Good usually lost. He used to think he was good, and when he thought he was a good person, he just got the shit kicked out of him. Not quite as bad as getting your head bashed into the roll bar of a Jeep as a bomb exploded, but still not great. 

The dog, the one he did not ask for, whined at his feet, pawing at his blue jeans. 

He thought they were blue. He asked his mom to buy him blue jeans, but maybe they were red for all he knew. He couldn't know what color, but they were rough, like denim. She'd at least gotten him denim, and it's not like he went anywhere. No one but Mom and Dad to see him a mismatched mess. 

And the dog. 

Cinnamon. 

Butters guessed he looked like cinnamon, whatever the hell that looked like. Who named a dog after what it looked like, when they knew they were handing the dog over to someone who couldn't see? He was a seeing eye dog. It's not like he was some random mutt. 

"Quit it," he shoved his hands towards his legs, gruffly feeling for the dog, and pushing him back. He whined, again, in some feeble protest. He'd seen worse things than an upset dog. Had. He had seen worse. Past tense. 

He couldn't see shit now. 

Didn't stop the dog from pawing at his pants leg. What did it need? He hadn't wanted a dog, not even a little. Okay, so he had wanted one as a kid, but it wasn’t allowed. He wasn’t a ten year old who was asking for a pet; he was an adult.

And the dog wasn’t a pet, it was a tool, a living breathing tool he didn’t even ask for. The dog wasn't new eyes, his left eye was in some shitty sand dune, and his right one was in his head, too fucked up to work. 

Robot eyes, that's something he could get behind. Maybe they'd read his thoughts, or might malfunction and shock him to death, but at least he wouldn't have to stumble through his parent's two story house to let out a damn dog. 

How was he supposed to afford the upkeep on a dog, anyways? His folks never let him have one, and now at twenty how was he supposed to adjust to being allowed to having a dog on the carpet? Secretly, mostly because no one talked to him, he hoped that the dog took a dump on the dumb Persian rug they'd bought themselves for his graduation. 

 

Not that he was sure they still had it. And he tried not to talk to them more than was absolutely necessary. 18 year olds don't sign up for the service straight out of high school because they love their parents, at least he didn't. He had an offer of a full ride to Denver, and he had half a ride to Arkansas State. He didn't know what was in Arkansas, but he knew his parents weren't there. 

Denver was too close. An hour drive that his dad could make at any given moment to terrorize him. He would have, too. Maybe he'd have made Butters' commute, and then he'd lose his sight in some freak roll over accident where he slid down the side of a mountain, and it was just a miracle he was safe, except his eyes. 

He was fairly certain that if you had to make an exception, it wasn't a miracle. He'd venture to say that losing his eyes wasn't even lucky. Lucky is when you get a bunch of extra fries at your McDonald's bag, or when you only hit green lights. That's lucky. 

Permanent blindness is not either of those things. It was mostly inconveniences. Right now, the inconvenience was feeling around for the door handle as the damned dog whimpered and nudged into his leg. What did he want? Did they even train him before just handing him over? 

His folks dragged him to the local new station, for a surprise. A fucking dog. They'd got him a service dog, look at how much they loved their vets, giving them stuff they didn't even ask for. They paraded him in front of cameras, the grooves in his face from some shrapnel fully visible. He'd brought his glasses, but they didn't want him to wear them.

Guess the story was better if he was permanently disfigured.

Were they just desperate for some sappy feel good story after covering nothing but fucked up shit for twelve hours a day? He couldn't see the fear mongering, but he could hear it. Dad left it on all day, and Butters could never find the remote to listen to anything else. The one time he did find it, he couldn't remember where the channel button was, and he ended up mashing them down until it was in Spanish. He didn't even know if he changed the channel. 

He didn't get yelled at, not really. His Dad started, spouting off about how he was ungrateful, and then he stopped. If he knew that being blind would get him out of punishment and lectures, he would have gouged his eyes out in third grade. 

Finally the latch clicked open, and Cinnamon, the dog he never asked for or wanted, kept nudging his leg. Was the dog that was supposed to be his eyes in the world, too stupid to walk down the steps to the deck and take a leak? The dog cried and he could feel the phantom press of a nose against his jeans. Did he want to be pet? Was he waiting for some more intrinsic permission?

It didn't matter. This was what it meant to be lucky, he thought to himself as he stumbled out onto the deck. It was slippery, ice crunching beneath his bare feet. He had always been the one to salt the deck. Maybe it hadn't been salted since his time home before deployment. 

The cold burned his toes within a few seconds, but he stood still, anyway. He wasn't entirely sure where the stairs started, and it's not like the dog was shit for help. He was lucky, and he had to be just lucky enough to slide down a half flight of icy stairs and only get a minor concussion.

The dog barked, twice, as Butters shivered in the cold. He wrapped his arms around himself and willed his teeth not to chatter. It was mind over matter, like everything was. If you worked hard enough, you could make your body overcome anything, or that's what his drill sergeant had told him when he was vomiting in the latrines after running laps. 

Funny enough, that guy showed up at his bedside, but he didn't try to tell him to use his spirit to overpower his blindness. It's almost like what he said back then was total bullshit. 

"Go take a leak!" Butters yelled, shifting his weight to pick one foot of the ground, then switch. It wasn't actually a relief to take his foot away from the cold, it was just a ten second break that was immediately forgotten by the stinging pain of the ice. "Shoo!" 

He didn’t used to yell like this, well he did, but he was a kid and no one took it seriously. No one took anything seriously, back then. He felt bad, but it’s not like the dog understood. The dog would never understand how much of an inconvenience he was.

They used to beat up stray dogs when they were kids. Maybe this dog was the great grand dog of a dog they beat the crap out of with sticks back in the day. He didn't remember any that looked like cinnamon, but what did cinnamon even look like? Brown? He couldn’t remember.

He had gone to a couple of support groups, when he was still in the hospital. He hadn't asked to go, but the nurse had gotten him into his wheelchair like some kind of invalid and pushed him into a room that smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee. It smelled like cigarette smoke, but that's just how soldier's smelled. He used to think it was gross, back when he was a kid, but maybe he'd just preferred vaping. 

Someone, one on of the rare times he was listening, guy must have been blind, said he had forgotten what his wife looked like. Butters was glad not to have a wife, 'cuz he couldn't forget her face that way. He had left that meeting thinking it wouldn't matter because he didn't have any faces he wanted to remember. He didn't think of all the things you needed to be able to see, from the remote, to the stairs, to the menu at a restaurant. 

The lights buzzed the whole time. It was louder than the people talking. It wasn't, and Butters knew it wasn't, but it was louder. It shouldn't have been. Identifying the background noises of the room shouldn't have taken priority to his brother's in arms- siblings in arms, because he was pretty sure he heard at least one lady, their stories. They were talking about the war, and who died and who lived, that should have been the most important thing.

But instead he spent those times trying to hear if it was an air conditioner or a refrigerator kicking on and off. He was pretty sure it was AC, but it was cold outside, and it smelt like the heater. It didn't make sense for fridge to be placed into the corner of a meeting space. 

Lots of things didn't make sense. It wasn't new that things didn't make sense to him. He had two good eyes, and he'd still be there scratching his head at people and the way things were. Like if Eric liked Kyle so much, why didn't he just tell him, instead of calling him a dirty Jew? 

People and things had been hard to understand his whole life. 

"Goddamnit," his feet were going to freeze to the deck if he wasn't careful. And he was sure, that if he was careful, something terrible would happen anyways, because that was just the order of the world. 

The dog was right next to him, still.

"Piss inside, see if I care if they beat you with a newspaper," Butters shrugged. He would have rolled his eyes, but with the patch over his left socket, and the right one mostly immobile, he didn't. The Butters in his head, the one that could still see stuff and had two eyes and didn't live with his parents, that Butters was rolling his eyes.

That Butters was Leo, he guessed. He liked being Leo better than being Butters. He was pretty sure anyone would agree. If they had to pick between Leo, who carried a gun and was good at Spades, or Butters who was blind and lived with his parents and a seeing eye dog that was too dumb to use the bathroom in the snow, they'd pick Leo. 

They'd pick Leo or they'd be wrong. 

Butters' life fucking sucked. He shuffled, bare feet scraping across the rough ice, hands out in front of him like he was trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Hah, his whole life was looking for the toilet in the dark, he guessed. His hands moved up and down, fingers bending in the chill, as he searched for the door. He hadn't gone that far outside, a few steps at most. Did someone move the door to the other side of the house while he wasn't looking? 

He was never looking, so it was possible.

The dog barked, jolting him out of his self deprecating humor, which was really the only kind he had left. There was always some of the naughty kind at base, but he wasn't at base anymore. He couldn't tell his mom a joke about breasts and sand, that wouldn't go over well. She might not say anything, because what could she possibly say when her war hero son, who is blind, says something off color?

Nothing?

Laugh?

He wasn't gonna try it, though. He didn't want a sympathy giggle from his mom, not after busting the chops of the guys in his unit. The girls didn't think the adventures of titty frog were very funny, but he also didn't care. The joke wasn't for them, it was for the guys between rounds of cards. 

Now those jokes weren't for anyone.

The dog barked, again. 

"They aren't for you, neither," Butters huffed, still searching for the door. He could hear the dog move, the ice underneath him giving way. Then there was the top of his head, sturdy as a rock, pushing into his kneecaps. What did that mean? Was he supposed to kneel down on the cold ground? 

The dog kept pressing, and eventually Butters stumbled forward, feet slipping against the ground. It was too fucking cold for this. He swatted backward, twisting to hit the dog. Not hard, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to be left alone. Maybe it'd sting a little, but the dogs head seemed sturdy. It felt sturdy against his legs as he continued being pushed forward. 

Right into the door, by the chill of the doorknob on his abdomen. 

"Not smart enough to take a leak, but smart enough to find a door?" Butters groaned, twisting open the knob and hobbling inside. 

He didn't know what time it was. He never did.

He had known in the hospital. He usually had a nurse near him, and if not, all he had to do was wait a few minutes and ask what time it was. And sometimes, they'd announce what time it was on their own accord. Time for your bandage change; time for breakfast. Those things had a set time in the hospital, and there were no set times here. 

His Dad got home whenever he felt like coming home. Sometimes he'd be home by six, and sometimes he just didn't show up. He didn't even know where his mom was most of the time. Did she have a job? Was she volunteering? Was she in therapy? 

Sometimes he hoped neither of them would ever come home. He'd be alone, and he'd probably starve to death in his bedroom, but that'd be fine. 

Really, he should have died in the rollover. Everyone said so. Four people in the truck, and two of them were his friends. He should have been dead; Elliot or Chase should have lived. The back seat is supposed to be the safest place in the car, he'd learned that from The Office. Turns out overseas, shotgun is the safest. It's the place for miracles, except for one part.

If he wasn't so mad at Brandon for his jerk-wad driving, he might have admitted they were friends, too. Not like they went out of their way to spend time together or sit next to each other at chow, but they were Spades partners, more often than not. He had a dumb tell, he wrinkled his nose whenever the bids matched up. 

They didn't win very often, but they were partners. 

If he had just stayed on the road, and not swerved to save a rabbit, they'd have been fine. Guy was at war but didn't have the balls to run over a fucking rabbit. Instead they veered into the sand dunes and then boom. 

It probably killed the rabbit, too. 

The dog whined, this time pressing his nose into his still frozen feet. Butters grumbled, but continued walking. A real slave driver, this one. He took slow and measured steps until he banged his shins against the couch. The dog could whine for him to walk, but couldn't bark for him to stop. Good to know. 

Maybe he'd get hit by a semi if he walked him around town, or he'd stumble into a homeless encampment in SoDaSoPa. Miracles didn't exist out there, he was pretty sure. If they did, they'd have saved Karen from cancer, but they didn't. She was dead before they even graduated. 

But it'd be so like him to take a miracle meant for someone else. 

He didn't know how long he sat. The dog, Cinnamon, he should probably call his seeing eye dog by it's stupid name, sat at his feet. Once his feet thawed, he'd running one up and down his back. The dog was soft, a Lab mix, not that Butters was so confident he knew what a Labrador looked like. His hair was shorter than the cat Eric had, but longer than Sparky's. 

"Wanna get on the couch?" Butters asked the dog. Did he think the dog would answer? He wasn't sure. His dad freaked out whenever he sat on the couch after school, saying he'd get it dirty, so a dog would probably piss him right off. But what was he going to do? Say that his blind kid's dog can't sit on the couch? No, that'd be too cruel, even for him. 

The dog didn't know that command. He hadn't really paid attention when they taught him how to use the dog. He had mostly just told the trainer that he didn't want a dog. He didn't need a dog; he needed new eyes. He groaned as he heard the click of a lock and creak of the door hinges. 

Was Dad not giving the door DW-40 because he thought it'd help him to hear? Or was he just a lazy asshole? Butters was pretty sure, from the way that he had wordlessly 

"Oh, you're home Butters," his mom's airhead voice called out. Where was he going to be? At a movie? Even if his disability had enough left over at the end of the month for entertainment, where was he going to go? 

He didn't drive. The buses were unreliable at best, and even if he could get somewhere, all the stuff he had done before required sight. Everything in the world was made for people who could see, and he hadn't notice until he wasn't one of those people. 

"Gee," he bumped his fists together. "I'm home." She had said when they first visited in the hospital right before he was discharged, that she missed the old Butters. He had wanted to be called Leo, and he had said that his face hurt like a bitch. Both things were true, and he figured that in his misery he was at least due certain concessions. 

Turns out he wasn't, so here he was, bumping his fists like a dumb kid and talking like a church boy. Golly gee wilikers! Mom, Afghanistan was real swell. He hadn't quite gone that far, but he'd thought about it. He snorted, shaking his head slightly. Like he had gone to camp, and not a war zone where he nearly got his face blown off.

She didn't say anything. 

She had either left the room, or she wasn't paying attention. The TV talked about food recalls, sausage was making people sick, who'd have thunk. She didn't ever change the channel, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself by asking if she was there. 

Even if she was there, he didn't really want to talk to her. They didn't have a thing in common. She'd spent her life letting Dad boss her around, and she'd never grow out of it. He at least finally grew a pair and told folks to cut it out. People don't tease you when you're overseas, not really. The occasional mean joke, and maybe a snide comment, but no ones taking your underpants and putting them in the freezer when you're getting shot at.

"Butters," her voice sounded far away. He listened closer, hearing the clanking of pots and pans and the running of the kitchen tap. She didn't even stop to go to the bathroom, unless his estimate of the time was off. How long had he been thinking about his old buddies? There was no way to check, not without asking her, and he didn't want to do that. 

"Butters," she said louder. He was supposed to answer. 

"Yes ma'am?" He said, the dog readjusting near his feet. Did the dog think his name was ma'am? That'd be a better name, he thought. A stupid name for a stupid dog that couldn't even pee outside. 

"Do you want to help me in the kitchen?" Why was she asking him that? What was he supposed to do? He had liked to cook, it was his favorite chore in middle school, but it's not like he could do any of it now. He hadn't been able to see for two months and he couldn't even find a doorknob most of the time. He could only imagine how much help he'd be if she wanted him to chop an onion or find him a measuring cup. 

It was hard enough for him to remember if she wanted baking soda or baking powder when he could see. It'd be damn near impossible without his sight. 

"What do you need me to do?" Butters asked, swinging his legs against the bottom of the couch. When he was a kid, he got grounded for this sort of furniture destroying behavior, but now no one cared. He could piss on the damn couch and no one would say a word. They'd probably just think it was the dog. 

"I'm making your favorite," she sung, a lilt in her voice. 

"Monte Cristos?" He asked, deciding to drop that she didn't answer his question. 

"Uh, no, pork chops." 

He hated pork chops, especially the ones she made. They were stringy and dry and all the coating always fell off. Plus, anytime they had a hunk of meat for dinner, she felt the need to cut it into bite size pieces for him. He could cut it himself, and if he couldn't he could just pull it up to his mouth with his fork and take a bite. 

He wasn't a child. 

"Sounds yum," he said. "You're such a good cook." 

"You're too sweet," her voice broke on the word sweet, like a someone hit the pedal while playing the piano. "You're my sweet boy." She was crying, that's what the break had been. He heard sniffles and sobs as the news spoke about some dress at Old Navy. They were BOGO 50, which meant this was probably an add and not the actual news. "Giving your eyes for the country."

For starters, he was a man. He was a twenty year old man who couldn't see, and then as a follow up, he didn't give his eyes to anyone. They were taken from him, even if he still had the one. He certainly didn't give his eyes away. It wasn't some noble sacrifice, it was shitty driving. 

No one wanted to hear that, though. He clenched his fists and Cinnamon pressed his face into his leg. Were labs herding dogs? Maybe whatever he was mixed with, that'd be why he was acting like this. Dumb dog thought he was a sheep. 

"Thanks Mom," he sighed, standing up at the dogs insistence. The dog had a harness, one he was supposed to hold to walk, but he didn't. He could get around his own house, his parents house, alone. He stumbled through the living room, banging his knee against a side table, one that was always in the way, even when he could see. 

After much trial and error he sat at the kitchen table, the dog still pressed against his leg. Damn the dog wanted to be helpful. He doubted the dog would grow out of it like children do, either. He'd just have this super annoying dog that he didn't ask for until it died or he died. He'd tried leaving the door open yesterday, and he didn't run off. He just sat there, like it was his job to babysit Butters. 

A crap job for a crap dog, he guessed. 

"Oh, at work, one of your little friends asked about you," his mother said loudly over the sound of sizzling oil. He'd been home for a month, and no one had come by, so they couldn't have been too concerned, whoever it was. It hissed again as she let out some mollycoddled version of a curse that sounded an awful lot like gingersnaps. 

"Who?" It was his job to ask, and since there wasn't any other work he was doing at the moment, he figured he could at least play this part. She was a good mom, sometimes, even if she was bat shit crazy. 

"The McCormick boy, with the God awful thing on his neck," she scoffed. "Well, he asked about you, and I said you're keeping busy and doing great." 

"On his neck?" Butters asked. Why would she lie to one of the McCormick's? He wasn't keeping busy, the last big thing he'd done was last week he went on the news and got the damn dog that was asleep at his feet. Or maybe the dog wasn't asleep, because how could he tell? It's not like dogs snored, did they? He hadn't heard Cinnamon snore. 

"Oh, it's just dreadful," she fretted, the oil hissing. It smelt burnt, like the flour she dredged that poor animal through had charred. "He's such a delinquent. He's not like you, darling." 

"Do you mean Kenny, Mom? Or do you mean Kevin?" He hoped it was Kenny, the one person in town he could stand to be around, at least before he shipped out, but with his great luck, Kevin McCormick must of held some secret flame for him. 

"Oh, one of the two of them," she laughed. "Why start all your names with a K, I don't know. Why have three kids to start? If they'd only had two they might have been able to take a bit better care of Kailey, you know?" 

"Her name was Karen." He didn't know. He didn't know how not having a third child would protect that kid from brain cancer.

"She was a sweet girl. Always messy, but a sweet thing." 

"Mom," he groaned at the table, and the dog shifted, putting his head in his lap. He scratched his head, mostly because trying to figure who the hell had been asking about him was stressful as fuck. She shouldn't have such a problem telling him who. If she didn't know who it was, why bring it up?

"I know, I know," the kitchen stunk. He didn't want to eat this, even if he'd skipped lunch. It was too hard to maneuver his way around the kitchen, alone. "The one who used to wear his underwear on the outside. You guys played that superhero game together, oh, I think it's Kevin." 

"It was Kenny, Mom," Butter corrected.

"Right, well he asked how you were and I told him you were fine. Busy and fine." Great. The one person in the whole town he'd actually entertain a conversation, thought he was too busy to talk, when really he was sitting on his bed all day, listening to the dull drone of the news from downstairs. 

"Well, next time maybe don't," Butters bit his tongue after he said that. She wasn't going to call him on it, because she didn't call him on anything anymore, but that was bad son behavior. "I mean, I'd like to talk to Ken. It gets lonely around the house all day." 

"You can do better than him," she cursed, a mom curse of cheese and crackers as she flipped the pork chops. They didn't need to be flipped twice. That's probably why they were so tough. That animal had died for them, and this acrid smell was it's hero's welcome. "I don't even think he has a job. He's trouble. I bet he got that mess on his neck done in jail." 

"Kenny went to jail?" This was news. No one told him about jail. He hadn't been gone that long, less than two years, so it's not like he could have been in very long. 

"Got caught selling meth, out of the Tweak's coffee shop, no less. He was spiking the drinks, can you imagine?" Yeah, Butters could imagine. They'd all known the Tweak's were doing that, and they just figured the whole town knew. His face might have given it away, a smile, but he had a sneaking suspicion that his mother never looked at his face. 

"You don't say," he muttered, trying to sound shocked. "Well, maybe tell him to talk to me, if you see him at work." 

It was news that his mom had a job. He mulled that over while he waited for dinner to finish. The smoke detector didn't ever go off, but that just made him think that the damn thing was out of batteries. It irritated his throat to breathe. No one complained, though. His mom didn't say anything, so he wasn't going to say anything. He leaned his head against the cool wood of the table, the sleeve of his shift acting as a mask as he inhaled, and drifted off to sleep. 

When he woke up, there was a plate in front of him, and a fork already in his hand. Like he wasn't capable of feeling around the table for a fork, but was capable of blindly stabbing into his food. He took a bite to his mouth, and grimaced. Not only was it burnt, it was cut into cubes, and cold. 

He didn't ask where she was, she'd had dinner without him, or with him, since he was still at the table. He did his best to pick around the meat, judging by resistance to the fork. The macaroni was fine, as was the corn, which coming from a can and a box, he'd hope she couldn't ruin those. 

He wouldn't be too shocked if she did, honestly. 

When he was fairly confident he finished what was edible on the plate, he kicked his feet forward, waking up the dog.

"Sorry about this," he sighed, pulling the plate off the table and putting it in his lap. "Come 'ere, Cinnamon," he cooed. "Who's a good boy? Who wants a treat?" The dog perked up, shuffling from laying on the floor to standing. His feet scratched against the tile in the kitchen as he sniffed at the plate eagerly. 

He took a bite, or at least put his nose onto the plate, before backing away. The pork chop wasn't even good enough for the dog, a dog who was too dumb to go pee outside in the snow. 

“That was a mean trick, huh,” Butters sighed, leaning forward and eventually scratching him on the head. “It wasn’t a treat at all.” Butters pulled his chair back, and shuffled to the trash can, where he scraped the plate clean with his hand. 

He only banged his foot against the furniture once, which was an improvement. He didn't need the dog, and really, the only thing the dog could be trusted on, was his taste in meat.


	2. Chapter 2

_The road in front of Butter's is dusty. Not the usual dust he encounters stateside, but a special kind of miserable that manages to cover all of the road. The other guys, guys who had been here longer, say he'd get used to it. A guy from Arizona said that all desert is pretty much the same, and he shouldn't leave the mountains if he can't handle a little dust storm._

_Butters coughs, trying to expel the shit from his throat and consequentially his lungs. It's settles, and some nights he gets back to base and is still coughing up dirt. It's gritty in his mouth, both on the way down and on the way up._

_"Oh shit, they've got bunnies and crap over here," Elliot chuckles from the back of the Jeep._

_Butters turns his body, pivoting in his seat and pulling against his seat belt. The seat belt is another give away that he's a goodie two shoes. He can't shake his dad's voice threatening to throw him out of the car if he doesn't buckle up, so he does it on instinct. No one else is fastened, even though they were all taught in basic training to always wear the safety belts._

_"Like you thought rabbits didn't exist here?" Chase laughs. "There are rabbits everywhere."_

_"How do you know that?" Elliot is defensive, even though he has no real reason. He's usually like that though. Always itching for a fight that he has no business in. Makes sense he's in the Army, it's just constant bone picking._

_"They taught it in school, numb nuts." Butters turns to see Chase still smiling, and flipping Elliot the bird. They're fun to be around, and Butters feels lucky they're his friends. His friends back home sort of suck. Okay, so they really suck, but these guys are cool. Not nice, not in a traditional sense, but they have each others backs. No one is selling you out overseas, it just doesn't happen here._

_In that way, Afghanistan is better than home. Actually, in lots of ways Afghanistan is better than home. And Butters isn't sure what that says about him, or if it's a statement on home, or something about this place, but he knows in his bones it's true._

_"Is that what those little brown things on the road are? Rabbits?" Brandon, the driver, asks._

_He lost them their card game last night, with his creeping smile that makes his eyes crinkle. He would probably be better suited anywhere else in the world, but who is Butters to judge that kind of thing? He's not really a prize. They're not drafting him for his macho abilities, or his muscles. The only thing admirable about him is his ability to follow a direct order without question. That's a good thing here. It's good to blindly do what you're told and you don't have all the dumb ass neighbor kids telling you to disobey._

_"Oh fuck, I've been hitting Thumper?" Brandon says like it just finally dawned on him that the moving rocks along this rural road weren't actually rocks. Butters stifles a snort; it's not polite to laugh._

_"Yeah, dude, Thumper," Elliot laughs. They laugh a lot for being at war. Butters thinks about that sometimes. He didn't think war was supposed to have so many jokes, but it does. He's thankful it does, but it just feels wrong._

_"I didn't know that," Brandon says. "I don't want to kill them._

_He sounds dejected. Is he disappointed about the bunnies? Just last week some kids playing outside, not even middle school age, not that Butters thinks they have that here, kicked what they thought was a hunk of metal. Except it wasn't just scrap, it was a landmine. Their landmine, not recent, but still theirs. He was close enough to see people, real life people, kids, blow up, and he's worrying about bunnies._

_Butters wonders if Disney had made a bunch of movies about cute middle eastern kids living in the forest and having adventures, if they'd feel worse about this whole thing. He doesn't wonder for long though, because in a split second, the car is swerving off of the dirt road and into the rocky median. He focuses his eyes and looks into he road.  Out of the corner of his eye he can see a little brown rock underneath him._

_A bunny, he thinks._

_As soon as he understood why they are swerving, there is a loud bang that made his ears ring, and then heat. Lots and lots of heat, all out of nowhere. He didn't think that the desert could get any hotter. Before he could place the noise and the heat, they were tumbling. Head over heels, then in circles._

_It was like that ride that Eric Cartman told him he had to ride at the Colorado State fair or he was a pussy. He didn't want to be a pussy; he didn't think his Dad would like that very much. He didn't think his dad would be happy to hear that the roll bars of the Jeep were banging against some rocks. It was hot, still. And the one time he opened his eyes to see what was going on, all he could see was flames._

_They'd hit a bomb._

_They were just like those dumb kids. Not paying attention and this was their consequence. He hoped it wasn't their own landmine, that'd just add insult to injury. He finally got that phrase at least, his English teach would be proud. He'd probably be prouder if he wasn't about to burn to death._

_Golly, is burning to death how he was gonna go? It sure seemed like this is the end. He says a quick prayer, insurance in case Jesus was up there watching their fuck up. He asks for forgiveness, and he hopes his mom wouldn't be too sad he was gone._

  
_Right when he starts wondering how she's going to take all this, he blacks out._

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Butters shot out of bed, sitting with his hands propped behind him. It was just a dream. If he just opened his eyes he'd know. He'd know it was dream, not real.

Nope, not a dream. A nightmare. 

"Mother fucker," he whispered, sweat sticking his shirt to his chest. The nightmares were the worst. The gut instinct to open his eyes at the end, followed by the realization that he couldn't see, just compounded the fear. 

The bed compressed under some foreign weight, creaking in protest. The damn thing hadn't been changed since he was ten, but who really gave a damn. What's the difference between every eight years and every sixteen in the grand scheme of things. His parents had changed there's twice, so maybe there was some. 

"The fuck?" He asked aloud when something brushed against his hand. He swatted it away, fearing a spider or cockroach. He'd read that people ate six spiders a lifetime back in high school, and he didn't want this to be a night he ate one. It felt like insult to injury for God to send spiders to him tonight. 

Something cold and damp pressed against his hand, and the bed shook again. When Butters slapped at it again, it whimpered. The damn dog. 

"What are you doing?" He asked. "Huh?" He continued, like this low budget seeing eye dog reject that was such a fuck up they just gave him away could hear him. "I'm fine, thanks for asking. Now go." 

The dog didn't listen, but by this point, Butters was fairly certain that Cinnamon wasn't capable of listening. He exhaled through his nose as the dog climbed all the way into bed, placing his paws on Butter's chest. He whined, because that's what the dog seemed good at doing, and crawled further across Butter's torso. 

"You're gonna smother me," Butters complained, batting the dog away. It didn't seem to matter to the dog, nor did it keep him away. He guessed death by rogue service dog was as good as any a way to go. At least he wouldn't be the only one left alive. 

Fate just had to wait a couple extra months for him. 

"Off!" Butters yelled, pushing the dog off of his chest. It stayed gone, at least long enough for him to swing his feet around, feel for the floor, and stumble to the bathroom. 

His parents had a master suite, downstairs, and he had the bathroom at the end of the hall, while his room was at the top of the stairs. If he got too cocky, he could walk right down the stairs, and knowing his luck, he'd live, but it'd take his hearing, or his ability to talk. 

The only thing that would come from another accident would be further isolation. As much as he hated staying in his childhood home with his parents all day, he'd hate being alone in a nursing home more. At least he thought he would.

He'd never been in one before, so maybe he wouldn't hate it as much as hitting his toes and elbows on every single piece of furniture between his bed and the toilet. 

To be honest, he wasn't even sure he was making it into the toilet. He could hear the tell tale pitter-patter, but it was hard to tell. His mother hadn't complained, but he didn't figure she would. Even if the entire floor was covered in pee, she'd just clean it. He was barefoot, though, and his feet were dry, so he figured he was getting close enough to the target. 

He leaned forward, boxers still around his ankles, fumbling for the flusher. Was it on the left side? His left, or left from the position of the toilet? He couldn't find it, but he did bang both knees into the cold porcelain. 

"Mother fucker," he hissed, bending down and pulling his pants up. He was the only one who used this bathroom anyways. If the toilet wasn't flushed, then it wasn't the end of the world. It'd peeve his mother, sure, but it's not like she was blind living with her parents after serving her country. 

He had a trump card that way. 

He heard nails on the tile; the damn dog had followed him into the bathroom. He hadn't bother to shut the door, but as the Cinnamon pushed at his calves, he wished he had. He wanted to wash his hands in peace. No one in the army had followed him this closely into the bathroom. There had been a buddy system, but nothing this intense. 

"Go lay down," Butters grumbled. A wet nose stayed pressed into his skin, despite his complaints. "Shoo!" He shouted. It ricocheted off the walls. It was much louder than he expected it to be. "Fuck," he whispered, slouching down against the sink. 

The noise was off putting; off putting enough for him put his head between his knees and decide to wait the rest of the night out on the floor. 

The dog climbed into his lap, and he didn't have the will to force him away. Cinnamon was a heavy, grounding presence against his thighs. Without much thought, Butters held the dog, letting his fingers dig into his fur. He feel asleep, head titled against the cabinet, legs stretched out, and the dog resting on top. 


	3. Chapter 3

 "Your Mom and I have been talking, and we think it's time to get a job. You know, pull yourself up by your boot straps and get back on the horse. "   
  
Butters tried not to snarl, but judging by the tightness in the scar tissue around his eyes, he failed. Not that he thought his dad looked at his face. Maybe if he wasn't so angry at the idea of putting himself out there after a car bomb left him permentaly disabled and disfigured, he'd have appreciated the irony.   
  
He grimaced, just for good measure. Maybe he would have enjoyed that no one would ever tell him that his face was too goofy again, if the cost wasn't so high. A pit of guilt formed in his stomach for taking the smallest joy in it. He should have been dead, with his brothers, instead of sitting at the kitchen table at who knows what time in the day being lectured by his father.

"We got you the dog so you could be yourself again. You know, rejoin society."   
  
"You didn't get me anything," he snapped back.  "You paraded me on TV like some kind of freak show, and they rewarded me with a dog. Like bribing a child." Being back in this house for less than three months, well maybe it was more, time was fluid thing, had erased all of his obedience training from the military. Two to three months of sitting in silence all day undid all of the military's hard work.   
  
Just like the structure of the military freed him from his father's arbitrary rules. He'd forgotten how quickly it all happened.   
  
"Don't back talk me, Mister."   
  
"Or what?" Butter's laughed. "Will you ground me? Will you tell all my friends I can't go play? Or are you going to take the pet dog I didn't ask for?" 

"You watch your tone," he warned. There was something about going overseas and fighting actual terrorists that made his dad's power trips seem insignificant. "You have an interview at Tweak Bros in an hour, so get dressed." He could hear a chair scrapping against the floor and his dad sighing. "And bring Cinnamon."  
  
"Fuck off," he mouthed, knowing no one would see it. If you don't take any real risk, is it still an act of defiance?  
  
Before all of this, Butter's might have said yes. Certainly before boot camp, and even during, he would have thought himself so brave for disrespecting a commander, even if there was no chance of being caught. Of course he'd learned that basically everyone was chicken shit, all the time.

When he heard the front door shut, or maybe it was the door to his parent's bedroom, judging by the way it scraped against the frame, he pulled himself out of the chair. He only jumped a little when the chair toppled onto the ground. That was an improvement.

A better improvement might have been not knocking the chair over to begin with, but that didn't seem to be an option. Not right now, at least. He figured at a certain point, blind people had to be able to seamlessly function in their environments. A few times he'd thought about doing a Google search, but then he remembered he was blind and he couldn't read the results anyways.

Why his father had told him to get dressed for some sham interview at the seediest business in town was lost on him. He had gotten dressed. He was in jeans, he could tell by the fabric against his knees as he walked toward the front door and the cool metal of the button digging into his belly. For a few moments he thought about putting on a button up, but then he couldn't remember if he had one, and if he did, he doubted he could button it.

He didn't want to go to the interview looking like Tweek.

He didn't want to spend any period of time looking like that twitchy bastard.

As he stumbled out the door, he left Cinnamon locked in his room. The dog wasn't any help anyway. He tended to stand in front of him as he tried to climb downstairs, and weave between his legs as he made his lunch. He was a companion at best, and a nuisance the vast remainder of the time.

It wasn't until he could smell dirty cooking oil burning that he realized he did not have a good memory of the layout of the city. Maybe it had changed, he told himself as he kept walking forward.

Or maybe he'd stumble into traffic and be killed by a car.

He snorted. He wouldn't die, he'd just be paralyzed. There was no way he'd survive what he did then go out by someone's sedan. There was no way the universe could be so kind.

"Shit," he mumbled to himself after feeling someone brush against his shoulder.

"Watch where you're going, jeeze," a woman called out, scoffing at the end like this was the greatest inconvenience any human could ever endure. Like America went to war so that she would never have to accidentally touch a stranger while walking again.

"I would love to," he said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. It didn't work as he grit his teeth.

"Excuse me?" She asked, but it wasn't a question. It was not supposed to be answered. He was supposed to clarify that she had misheard him, by lying.

"I would love to watch where I am going, ma'am." To add insult to injury he turned toward her voice and smiled. He didn't show his teeth, mostly because he wasn't sure if he'd brushed them this morning, but it was still a smile.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she blurted out. "I didn't see you. God, I'm sorry, sir. I saw you on the news, you're that war hero. Thank you for your service." The last part made him curl his lip in disgust. He didn't really do anything over there but get blown up and play cards.

"I didn't see your face either," he said, resuming his walk.

Best case scenario was someone who knew him from before, a classmate or someone's mom would find him wandering through the streets and orient him in the direction of Tweak Bros. Or they'd give him a ride home and he could lie to his dad and say he bombed the interview.

Get it? Bombed.

Butter's laughed anyways.

 

 

He must have wandered for an hour. It could have been longer. It could have been shorter. All he really knew was his feet hurt. His feet hurt and judging by the warmth on his arms, the sun was still out.

Or he was wandering through tanning beds.

He supposed he didn't really know anything.

He certainly didn't know how it ended up that someone pulled him by the shirtsleeve into a building with the AC on full blast. It smelled like coffee as a man raved about how excited he was to see him.

Ah, Mr. Tweak, Butter's thought as he was sat at a table. When a hand pressed down on his shoulder, like he was an animal in need of training, he didn't understand why they would be offering him a job.

"NGH! AWK! MOTHERFUCKER!" A voice, undeniably Tweek, shouted in the background. Maybe the Tweak's just collected freaks. That could have been the thought process behind the interview. Maybe if they had enough weirdos working at the same place the government gave them a tax break or something.

Or it made no one ever look twice at the drug operation. He supposed it was one of those, and it'd be impossible to ever really know which.

"So, you want a job, son?" Mr. Tweak asked as the faux leather of the booth squeaked beneath his weight. "Well, just so you know, the interview is just a formality, you've got it."

"I don't want a job," Butters said. He tacked on a sir after the fact. A remnant of the military, he supposed. Or the power dynamics of being sat down by the dad of a kid he used to tease put him enough on edge for politeness.

"Well," Mr. Tweak did something between a cough and a laugh, like he was disarmed by Butter's frankness. "I have a job for you, and your father seems to think you'd like it."

"Oh, does he?" Butters asked. He didn't even bother trying to feign happiness with his face. It's not like he thought Mr. Tweak was looking. And even if he was, he didn't care. Let him be uncomfortable for a minute.

If he had to work here, then maybe Mr. Tweak would be uncomfortable always. Maybe he could make every single person who walked into the shop feel a little bit uneasy. Sometimes he wondered how many people waved at him, and talked with their hands, just on reflex. He also wondered if they noticed.

"Yes, he speaks so highly of you," Butters tried not to laugh. "You're a hero, after all."

So he was going to be some fucked up eye candy for the shop.

But without the eyes.

He failed and chuckled.

"So modest," Mr. Tweak praised as Butters tried to get his laughter under control. "When can you start?"

"Let me just look at my calendar, and see what's available." Butters paused for good measure. "Oh, never mind."

"Oh Jesus!" Tweek screeched in the background, accompanied by the sound of glass shattering. The Tweak's didn't spring for shatter resistant dishware? That was a shock. 

"Remember your breathing, Tweek," Mr. Tweak coaxed, like he was taming a lion. Tweek wasn't dangerous, he was just an idiot. He was just like all the other freaks in town, just worse at hiding it. "Think of the mountains. We're surrounded by nice mountains here, aren't we?"   
  
"Like volcanoes?" Tweek shouted. Everything was the same. Every stupid thing about this town was the same.   
  
"You can start tomorrow. Tweek will show you the ropes."   
  
"No!" Tweek squealed, his voice doing a burn out. "I'm not a good trainer, I don't _nrgh,_ don't train, and you want me to train a blind person? What if I spray him with hot foam on accident, or drop something. What if I trip and I spill scalding milk and it hits him right in the face, man? I can't! Can't!"   
  
"Richard," Mr. Tweak scolded, sounding offended. Why bother being offended? Tweek was obviously a shitty teacher. The kid couldn't even hold a fucking mug. Anyone with eyes could see he was unfit, and so could Butters. "That is no way to talk about our new employee. I though I raised you better."   
  
Butters couldn't guess what possible could have given him that impression.   
  
"I'm sorry, it seems I've raised a bigot. I've never been so deeply ashamed."   
  
"He just said I was blind," Butters scoffed. "I am blind, sir."   
  
"Your South Park's very own war hero," Mr. Tweak lauded. "I wish my son would have fought so bravely to protect us."   
  
"You wish your son was blind?" Why were civilians so strange? He had no doubt that Mr. Tweak would have loved to parade Tweek around town as a war hero, but he doubted the Army would even take him. They weren't so desperate for cannon fodder that they were taking Tweeks.   
  
They sat there in silence, before Butters stood up and pointed in the direction he thought the door was in. "Thank you for the job, sir." When no one made any comments about his hand, he started to walk in that direction. "I'll see you in the morning."   
  
"You're _argh_ walking toward the counter!" Tweek shouted, two seconds too late. Butters bumped into the sharp edge, then righted himself and spun around. "I'm not a bigot, I know you can do it," Tweek whispered. "But you hit the counter."   
  
"I can't see the counter," Butters said with his mouth mostly closed. "I'm not familiar with the shop."   
  
"I hit the counter all the time, man! All the time," Tweek spat his words rapid fire, like he was trying to console him. It didn't feel good to be compared to Tweek. "I can see it and I hit it, so it's not big deal. Not a big deal at all!" He was still going off about how minuet the whole ordeal was as Butter's walked out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this in a folder for far too long. I'll try to work on things a bit more evenly from here on out, but as always, no promises.


End file.
